It's Censorship

I don’t get upset about many things. I tend to go with a “live and let live” policy. If what you’re doing isn’t against the law, and isn’t hurting anyone, then as a rule, I don’t have a problem with it. I may not agree with it, but I’m not going to tell you you can’t do it because I don’t like it. But one of the things I have little tolerance for is censorship.

And that’s exactly what these two library workers colluded to do. Cook can dislike League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier all she wants, but that DOES NOT give her the right to keep a book from circulation because she believes a child might find it. It’s not her job to police the library and decide what’s proper for other people’s children to read. It’s for the parents, and the parents ALONE. The library makes this responsibility clear to parents when they sign for library cards for their children. Cook challenged the book, as was her right, but acted like a sore loser when her challenge was denied and chose to keep the book to herself. To protect the children. Who cares about any of the adult patrons who might be interested in the book. They don’t have the right to the book either. But:

Cook says that she never wanted the book taken off the shelves so adults couldn’t see it.

“I’m an adult. I do not want you telling me what I can read,” she says adamantly when you ask.

Can anyone else see the hypocrisy here? She doesn’t get her way, so she takes the book herself. Yeah, that’s a mature way to deal with the situation. I’m glad Cook and her cohort got fired. They violated everything that a public library stands for. They imposed their own moral standards on the whole community, invaded a patrons privacy and conspired to keep a book out of circulation. These are the WRONG people to have in an institution that is all about making books available to THE PUBLIC. It is not their responsibility and especially NOT their right to decide what other people, or their children, can or can not read.

As for getting “their reputations back”, it’s too late. They’ve already proved they can’t be trusted. Cook has essentially stolen the book from the library as she is keeping it with no intention of returning it. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, these women have paved one long road.